Thomas Kimball Brooker

Thomas Kimball Brooker
Born	(1939-10-01) October 1, 1939
Occupation(s)	Collector of rare books, academic, business executive
Years active	1962–present
Known for	Bibliophile; president of Barbara Oil Company; managing director at Morgan Stanley; president of Association Internationale de Bibliophilie

Thomas Kimball Brooker (born October 1, 1939) is recognized as a collector of rare books, an academic, and a business executive.

Education and military service

Brooker completed his undergraduate studies at Yale University in 1962. Following graduation, he served as a lieutenant in the Navy Supply Corps from 1962 until 1966. He pursued an MBA at Harvard Business School, graduating in 1968 with a thesis entitled Rare Books as a Hedge against Devaluation and Inflation. Later, he earned a Master of Arts in Art History (1989) and a doctoral degree (PhD) in 1996 from the University of Chicago, concentrating his research on sixteenth-century bookbinding techniques and the design of libraries.

Business career

Beginning in 1968, Brooker joined the Corporate Finance Department at Morgan Stanley, where he rose to vice president by 1973 and attained managing director status in 1976. Since 1989, he has held the position of president at Barbara Oil Company. Additionally, he has been a member of the Board of Directors for NYSE Chicago.

Bibliophile

Brooker’s passion for book collecting began during his time as an undergraduate at Yale, where he was awarded the Adrian Van Sinderen Prize in 1962. That same year marked his induction into the Grolier Club. In recognition of his contributions to book collecting, he received the Sir Thomas More Medal from the University of San Francisco in 1992. The University of Chicago established the T. Kimball Brooker Undergraduate Book Collecting Prize in his honor in 1994.

He holds trustee roles at both the Morgan Library and Museum in New York and the Newberry Library in Chicago. Between 2006 and 2013, Brooker served as president of the Association Internationale de Bibliophilie and has contributed numerous articles to its journal, Bulletin du bibliophile.

His personal library comprises more than 1,300 original-bound sixteenth-century French and Italian volumes. These works are being offered through Sotheby's from 2023 to 2025 under the title Bibliotheca Brookeriana: The T. Kimball Brooker Library of Renaissance Books and Bindings. This collection notably includes around 1,000 Aldines dating from the late fifteenth to late sixteenth centuries, representing the most significant Aldine assemblage to appear on the market in over one hundred years.

Brooker is affiliated with Chicago's Caxton Club and sponsors an annual scholarship enabling attendance at the Rare Book School. In 2020, he acted as patron for the exhibition "Poetry and Patronage: The Laubespine-Villeroy Library Rediscovered" hosted by the Morgan Library and Museum.

Selected publications

• T. Kimball Brooker, editor, Association Internationale de Bibliophilie, Actes et Communications/International Association of Bibliophiles, Transactions, XXVlIIIth Congress, Munich, Regensburg, Augsburg, Eichstätt, & Neuberg and Post-Congress, Nuremberg, Bamberg, Pommersfelden & Erlangen, 2013, New York, Jerry Kelly. 2019.
• T. Kimball Brooker & Carol Z. Rothkopf, editors, Association Internationale de Bibliophilie, Actes et Communications/International Association of Bibliophiles, Transactions, XXVIth Congress, Austria, 2009, New York, Jerry Kelly, 2017.
• T. Kimball Brooker, editor, Association Internationale de Bibliophilie, Actes et Communications/International Association of Bibliophiles, Transactions, Poland. XXVIlth Congress, Krakow & Warsaw & Post-Congress, Toruń, Peplin & Gdansk, 2011, New York, Jerry Kelly, 2017.
• T. Kimball Brooker, "The Library of Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle," Bulletin du Bibliophile, 2015. pages 23–72.
• T. Kimball Brooker. Index of Best Authors: By Subject Classification Compiled in 1547 by Antoine Morillon for Antoine Perrenot De Granvelle Including a Selection of Greek Manuscripts in the Library of Diego Hurtado De Mendoza, Besançon, Bibliothèque Municipale, Ms Granvelle 90, Ff. 11-18v. 2014. Association internationale de bibliophilie.
• T. Kimball Brooker, "The Institut de France and the Bibliothèque Mazarine: Seventeenth-Century Cultural Treasures," The Grolier Club: Iter Gallico-Helveticum: A Bibliophilic Tour of Paris & Alsace & Geneva, New York, The Grolier Club, 2013, pages 35–41.
• T. Kimball Brooker, "Student Book Collecting Contests Sponsored by American Colleges and Universities," Bulletin du Bibliophile, 2012, pages 217–227.
• T. Kimball Brooker & Carol Z. Rothkopf, editors, Association Internationale de Bibliophilie, Actes et Communications / International Association of Bibliophiles, Transactions XXVth Congress, New York City & Post-Congress, Chicago, 2007, New York, Jerry Kelly, 2011.
• T. Kimball Brooker,"Who Was L.T.? The Book Collector, Winter 1998:508-519 and Spring 1999: pages 32–53.
• T. Kimball Brooker. "Paolo Manutio's Use of Fore-edge Titles for Presentation Copies (1540-1541)" The Book Collector 46 (no.1) Spring 1997:27-68 and 46 (no.2) Summer 1997: pages193–209.
• T. Kimball Brooker,"Bindings Commissioned for Francis I's 'Italian Library' with Horizontal Spine Titles Dating from the Late1530s to1540," Bulletin du Bibliophile,1997: pages33–91.